The present invention relates to insulin pumps, and more particularly, to insulin pumps having a missed meal bolus alarm.
A large portion of the world""s population suffers from diabetes. Many of these people need to take injections of insulin to normalize the level of sugar in their bodies to prevent complications. Such complications can include kidney failure, loss of circulation, and blindness. The need to manually take injections with a syringe and the process of determining the dose for various shots can be a great inconvenience and can limit a diabetic""s activities and restrict their movements. Furthermore, it can be difficult to maintain a consistent level of blood glucose because there is a practical limit to the number of injections that most patients can receive.
One solution to reduce some of the problems associated with the manual injection of insulin is an ambulatory pump that delivers insulin to the diabetic user. Such insulin pumps can provide a more consistently normal level of blood glucose, which reduces the risk of complications from diabetes. However, current pumps still have practical limits to their programming that make them cumbersome to program and that limits the potential of the pump to provide even greater control over blood glucose levels.
One aspect of the present invention is a method of operating an insulin pump. The insulin pump is configured to selectively deliver a meal bolus. The method comprises entering into the pump a start time for an interval; entering into the pump an end time for the interval; and generating an alarm signal if a meal bolus is not delivered during the interval.
Another aspect of the present invention is a pump for delivering insulin to a user. The pump comprises a pump mechanism and a meal-bolus program module. The meal-bolus program module is programmed to control the pump mechanism to deliver a meal bolus. An alarm program module is in data communication with the alarm, the timer, and the meal-bolus program module. The alarm module is programmed to generate an alarm signal when the meal-bolus program module does not control the pump mechanism to deliver a meal bolus within a predetermined period of time.